Hydrometronics LLC

Who Are We?

We are just Noel Zinn, the principal of Hydrometronics LLC, who began the company in 2010 as a technical software consultancy.

Noel worked as a geodesist at the ExxonMobil Upstream Research, Exploration and Technical Computing companies in the Naughts (2001-2010), where his responsibilities included geodetic and cartographic support, specifying the geodetic architecture of IT systems, rig-positioning QC, wellbore survey algorithm development, technical programming, seismic navigation audits, the study of inertial navigation and multi-beam bathymetry, and subsea positioning support for ExxonMobil's marine controlled-source electro-magnetics development (R3M brand of CSEM). Noel retired to begin Hydrometronics.

Noel was a Navigation Scientist for Western Geophysical in the Nineties (1990-2001), where he provided geodetic support, acoustic and first-break positioning algorithms for OBC, a real-time marine-seismic network-positioning algorithm, least-squares estimation, Kalman filtering, survey quality control and network analysis, technical papers, geodesy and navigation classes, quality coordination, the collaborative design of a product-development process and marketing services.

As Geodetic Services Manager of NCS International in the Eighties (1978-1989) Noel's responsibilities included geodetic support, management of navigation data processing and of conventional, Doppler and GPS survey projects, geodetic planning, QC of navigation projects, research and development, software development, in-house training, and field work worldwide.

Based in SE Asia with Delta Exploration in the Seventies (1970-1975) Noel navigated the (original) m/v American Delta from Madagascar to Nome and administrated seismic land crews throughout Indonesia from Sorong to Sulawesi to Sumatra. He also traveled extensively throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma (now Myanmar), Laos and Cambodia photographing Buddhist and Hindu temples.

Travels

Before arriving in Singapore in 1970 with only $200, Noel served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Vedichipalayam village (near Karur) in the center of TamilNadu in the south of India growing rice and drilling water wells for two years. In addition to agriculture and irrigation, Noel trekked throughout India, Sri Lanka and Nepal photographing Buddhist and Hindu temples. He climbed to the top of Kala Patthar (5,550m / 18,200ft) just across the Khumbu Glacier from Mount Everest.

Academics

Before the Peace Corps, Noel graduated in the turbulent Sixties from UC Berkeley where he studied economics, engineering and surveying (taught by Francis H. Moffitt). After settling in Houston in the mid-Eighties Noel resumed formal education at the University of Houston including more surveying, geodesy, mathematics, statistics, programming, computer science, geology, and geophysics ... culminating in a master's degree in mathematics in 2017.